Aster's Garden
by hero.of.time.and.space
Summary: Aster isn't sure what to think when a mysterious man falls out of the sky with a blue box. Is he crazy? Probably. Is he safe? Probably not. So in a desperate attempt to escape her mundane life, she follows him. But as she begins her adventures with this man named 'The Doctor', she starts to discover more about her past than she had planned for.
1. Hello, Sweetie

'It's very hot outside." The Doctor muttered, checking his watch for the umpteenth time in the last twenty minutes. He sighed impatiently. He hated waiting. It was unbearably slow.  
'Yes, it is, isn't it?'  
The Doctor glanced up to where River had materialized in front of him.  
'You're late.'  
River fiddled with the vortex manipulator on her wrist and flicked a piece of curly hair behind her.  
'Yes, well I was in the middle of something very important.' she remarked.  
The Doctor raised an eyebrow.  
'What would that be?' he asked.  
River smiled mischievously.  
'Babysitting.'  
She came and took a seat on the bench next to him.  
'Beautiful view, isn't it?' River said.  
They sat on the top of a lush emerald hill facing a snowy range of mountains. They seemed to reach out for the sky, the tips of them disappearing in the clouds. The sky was filled with billions of stars, shining in a chroma of colours, even though it was the middle of the day.  
'The planet Ictha. Uninhabited for a millennia, since it's native species were all killed in an attack by the Sontarans. Nicknamed the "Planet of a Thousand Sighs" because its vast beauty is second to none. Is that why you chose to meet here?' The Doctor asked.  
River was silent for a moment.  
'Doctor, have you put much thought into our timelines?' she asked.  
The Doctor shrugged and glanced at the horizon.  
'No, I suppose not. It's always great fun figuring out where we are relative to each other,' he paused and looked over at her 'but I suppose that's it.'  
River nodded.  
'I have something to tell you.' she said quietly.  
Silence enveloped them, and the world seemed to stand still. The Doctor waited quietly with worry flooding his bones. Just when he thought he couldn't take it any longer, River spoke again.  
'I've seen your past and your future. I've seen so many parts of you. I've seen you at your strongest, and at your weakest. I've seen you whole and happy, and I've seen you broken and filled with grief. I've seen this face, and the face before.' she looked at him with tears in her eyes. 'But I have not seen the face after this one. And that scares me.'  
The Doctor took her hands in his and kissed them.  
'That does not mean anything. Maybe you've just not seen it _yet._' Though he said this to convince himself just as much as her.  
River slipped a hand from his and grabbed her notebook from behind her.  
'I've been doing some research,' she said, stroking its royal blue cover and flipping through the pages 'What is the current date? Earth time.'  
The Doctor looked at his watch.  
'December 27th, 2014.'  
River smiled sadly and closed the book, stroking the cover again. A single teardrop fell onto the leather.  
'This is as far as I can go.' she whispered.  
'What do you mean?' the Doctor asked quietly.  
River sighed and looked down.  
'Our timelines are jumbled, and we've never met in a chronological order. We skip through each others' lives in a haphazard sequence, never knowing how old or young the other is. I've been through so many points of your life but," she paused here, taking a steadying breath "in all my adventures, I've never been any farther than this date. It's like this day... it's almost as if time stops for me. It's a bit strange but after all... I am the child of the TARDIS."  
River stared down with a solemn expression, refusing to meet the Doctor's eyes.  
"What are you saying?" he said quietly.  
She finally looked up, tears flooding her eyes, and touched his hand gently.  
"This is the last time you will ever see me."  
Silence filled their ears as if they were rejecting what both of them had just heard. And feared to admit.  
'Not necessarily.' the Doctor protested, with tears streaming down his cheeks. River just nodded and put a hand on his face.  
'I've done the research, love. It's all here. Look through my journal and tell me one thing that hasn't happened to you.'  
The Doctor looked at the book, but didn't bother reaching out. He knew. When you're 1300 years old you learn to recognize intuition.  
Then the Doctor hunched forward and laid his head on River's shoulder. Tears streamed down his face and onto her blue jacket. She reached out a hand and began to stroke his hair.  
"Please don't leave me." he sobbed.  
River said nothing.  
After an immeasurable amount of time, the Doctor sat up, wiped his eyes, and stared back at River again.  
"I'm sorry. Sometimes I'm an emotional old man." he muttered.  
"No need to apologize," River shook her head, wiping her own eyes "you've earned the right to hate endings."  
The Doctor smiled sadly.  
"I do hate endings."  
River Song took his hand and he looked up. He noticed the vortex manipulator whirring on her wrist. She had been ready.  
"Then this isn't an ending." she said, squeezing his hand "this is a new beginning."  
With a slight flick of the wrist, River pressed the warp button on the vortex manipulator. But as she faded away, she blew him a kiss.  
"Hello, Sweetie."  
The silence grew for a few moments as the event set in. It was a few minutes later that the last tear slipped from the Doctor's eyes. He muttered one last thing before moving to the TARDIS.  
"I don't like beginnings, either."


	2. The Man in The Box

It was December when I stumbled upon him. The Doctor, I mean. In fact, it was my birthday. And by "stumbled upon" I mean _literally _stumbled upon. Or more like ran into...  
Like I said, it was December, so naturally it was cold. This night was especially cold, though; in fact the weather called for a snowstorm. It was late, probably around midnight or so and I was walking home from a party. We had all been talking about watching Harry Potter, and upon realizing the host owned only one, I had offered to walk to my house to get them. The party was being held at my neighbour's so it wasn't supposed to take that long.  
I wonder what they thought, though, when I didn't come back.  
The bright streetlamp ahead of me flickered and I pulled my hat further down on my ears. It had only just begun to snow, and the flurries near the pods of light looked like tiny dancing stars. I continued down the dark street and laughed at myself.  
_What a sight that must be, _I thought, _dancing stars.  
_A whirring sound stared to surround me, and I glanced around. It was a funny sort of sound, like a wheezing machine or a creaky wooden door. Surely no one was working on a car at this time of night? Though that wouldn't have surprised me. There were a lot of strangle folk in my neighbourhood. So I continued walking.  
And that's when it hit me.  
No, really. It _hit _me.  
I didn't see it coming, and only now that I'm more familiar with my assailer, I understand why.  
But more on that later.  
Out of nowhere, I ran into a wall. No, make that _the _wall- the wall of something. I flailed to the ground and collapsed to a very uncomfortable heap on the concrete. A sharp pain jolted through my hand- had it been broken? My vision struggled to clear itself, and as it did, I saw the strangest sight. A tall wooden box stood in front of me- obviously what I had run into.  
But had it been there a second ago?  
This... box-thing.. or whatever it was, was odd and frightening and captivating all at the same time. It was blue as far as I could tell in the dim light- the bluest blue I'd ever seen- and it had a door.  
_Like a telephone box, _I thought.  
Except telephone boxes normally don't have big lit signs on the top that read, "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX"  
This thing looked like it belonged in some kind of old movie. Outdated; out of place. I have no idea how much time passed. It could have been a second, it could have been an hour as I stared dumbfounded at the thing.  
Then again, there were so many questions running through my head in that moment, I could hardly tell you who I was. (Not to mention the fact that my mind was still spinning from being hit in the head)  
_What was this thing?  
__Where had it come from?  
__How had I not noticed it before?  
__Where did that noise go?  
__What was a police box?  
_I had seen quite a few peculiar things, but never quite as strange as what stood before me then.  
And it was about to get even stranger.  
I was so confused, it took a moment to register. For an instant, I thought I was seeing things. A movie-worthy creaking sound erupted from the box, the door swinging open. Then...a man stepped out.  
And spoilers- he's the most wonderful man in the universe.  
Of course, I didn't know that then, but I would find out soon enough.  
The man that stepped out was just as odd as the box he had popped from. How do I begin to describe him? The stranger looked to be in his mid-twenties. He was so tall, he loomed like a skyscraper above me, and the tattered brown top hat sitting on his head only made him seem taller. After a second glance, I noticed that the top hat was not the only piece of outdated clothing he owned. He had on black and white Oxford dress shoes, tan plaid dress pants, a burgundy vest, and a long black tailcoat that almost reached his ankles. Though his attire was a bit out there, his face was.. kind. The man had a sharp jaw, but a curved cheek, and fair skin. His eyes were the smokiest grey I had ever seen and they sparkled like they held a secret kept from the entire world. And his hair... oh, that hair... didn't seem to have a definable part, and it stuck out in messy tufts around his hat. It was a crazy red- no, make that more orange-rust auburn- so red that, though I lay there on the cold asphalt, I almost giggled.  
'Well,' he announced to no one in particular 'that was _quite _the landing.'  
I shook my head in amazement.  
'Your box just landed on my head and that's all you have to say to me?' I chuckled despite my irritation.  
He glanced down like he hadn't seen me before, and remarked in a daze, 'Ah, yes. Sorry about that- but it's just so strange! The TARDIS has never landed right in front of someone before..' he stroked the box and smiled 'she must be tired from all the excitement.'  
The stranger looked down at me once more and noticed my cradled arm.  
'What's wrong with your hand? You land on it, eh? Let me see.'  
With a flick of the back of his coat, he kneeled in front of me and took my hand so gently I didn't think to protest. From an unseen pocket inside his jacket, he took out what looked to be a large pen, but instead of an ink nib on the end, it had a large orange bulb. It was weird-looking and had a myriad of buttons and slides on it. It looked like something from outer space. When he pressed one of the buttons, the tip lit up and began making a high-pitched whirring sound. He waved it over my arm a couple of times, and just as abruptly as it had started, the sound stopped and he had tucked the object back in his pocket. He stood up.  
'Nothing to worry about, just a small sprain. Though you should probably keep it still and supported for a good while.' he paused, narrowing his eyes and looking over me 'what's your name?'  
At this point, I just wanted some answers. I had gotten over the shock of what was happening and now I just wanted to know _why.  
_There were so many things I thought about asking him in that instant.  
'What's _your _name?' I asked instead.  
Surprisingly, he smiled and held out both his hands.  
'I'm The Doctor.' he stated. As if that was a perfectly acceptable answer.  
I shifted my position and looked him straight in the eye.  
'What is that? A nickname or...'  
He shrugged.  
'I've always found my name irrelevant. There was a time when I was called something different, but that time has passed. Now my name is The Doctor.' he gave me a playful smile 'and I don't plan on changing that.'  
By now I was pretty sure I wasn't dreaming. Everything seemed so real, and even if it wasn't, what could it hurt to play along?  
'Alright then, 'Doctor', what are you doing here?' I asked, finally standing up and brushing myself off.  
The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows and stroked his box again.  
'Honestly, I'm not quite sure. I was on my way to Lantnivis when things got very wibbly wobbly. The TARDIS started-'  
'Wait, what's the TARDIS?' I interrupted.  
'Time And Relative Dimension In Space, very timey wimey.' he remarked dismissively and continued 'well, she started to smoke and make odd noises and somehow... she ran into you. Which is just strange...'  
The Doctor trailed off and looked around.  
'Judging by the light pressure to the air and the approximate 1,038 mile per hour turn of the planet... I presume I am on Earth sometime around 2014?'  
'Uhm... yes.. that would be correct?' I asked more than said.  
'Wonderful!' he clasped his long fingers together 'I love Earth! One of my favourites! A bit of a slow planet when it comes to technology- and frankly common sense- but you will grow eventually. Beautiful creatures if you ask me.'  
I snorted.  
'Yeah, you can think whatever you like, box man. But I think we're going down the drain as we speak.'  
We stood in a somewhat uncomfortable pause for a moment. The Doctor stared at me with a curious expression, his charcoal eyes searching for something I couldn't put my finger on. I stared back. Normally, this wasn't something I would do, seeing that I'm quite shy and awkward. But there was just something so... mesmerizing... about him. Suddenly, the Doctor's face broke into this enormous (and somewhat mischievous) smile.  
'Tell me,' he said excitedly 'do you have a phonebook?'

Before I tell you what happened next, I must point out that I am not normally the person to invite strange men into my home. In fact, it still confounds me as to why I did that exact thing. Nevertheless, there he was five minutes later, standing in my living room flipping through a phonebook. Top hat, tailcoat, and all. He loomed over my coffee table like a giraffe with that funny little confused look in his eye. I stirred my tea and leaned against the counter, watching him.  
'So who's number are you looking for anyway? You've been at thing for a while now.' I said, taking a seat on the sofa.  
'The Queen. You don't happen to know if her number is in here, do you?' he said without looking up.  
The tea in my mouth came very close to erupting out.  
'The Queen?! You want to call the Queen of England! Of course her number isn't in the phonebook! You can't just phone her any time you want!'  
The Doctor looked up at me incredulously.  
'Why not? She gave me her number years ago. I just seem to have misplaced it.'  
'The Queen gave you her phone number?'  
'Yes. Long story. Saved her from some unsociable werewolves.'  
'Werewolves?'  
'Yes. The entire royal family are werewolves. Well, with the exception of your current queen. She somehow missed that gene.'  
Werewolves. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I believed him or not. Mostly I just thought he was crazy. But then, a small part of me said that he was telling the truth.  
'So why do you want to call her now?' I asked 'I mean, it doesn't exactly seem as if there's any danger of rabid werewolves right now.'  
The Doctor turned to me again with a serious look on his face.  
'Can you keep a secret?'  
I smiled and made a motion of locking my lips and throwing away the key. To my surprise, The Doctor hopped up and took a seat beside me. I subtly moved an inch away.  
'James.' he whispered.  
'James?' I asked.  
The Doctor nodded.  
'I have a message from Queen Elizabeth's great-great-great-grandson.'  
'But Queen Elizabeth doesn't have a great-great-great-grandson.'  
'Ah,' he remarked, holding up a finger 'not right now. But she will, and his name is James. And he is considered to be the best king England has ever had. Well, that is until George Winthrop takes over in 3045.' He grinned. 'He wants to say hi.'  
I smiled at this man. This unusual man with the 19th century clothes, who stumbled out of a blue box and told stories of werewolves and the year 3045. I'd never known anyone like this. He was so quirky and whimsical and... magnificent. There was something about him that made me long to know more about him. Long to be his friend. He had this way of speaking, this sparkle in his eye. He was like something out of a fairy tale.  
'Hm.' the Doctor remarked, looking around the room 'this is rather a large house for just one person.'  
I nodded but said nothing. My eyes scanned the room around me. The jumbled cardboard boxes, the stacks of unwashed dishes, the poorly painted walls and empty cabinets. It was cold and dark and empty and smelled like lemon cleaner. It felt nothing like a home. Then again, no place I'd ever lived in had.  
After a few moments, the Doctor looked back at me with a concerned look.  
'Do you ever get lonely?'  
The question took me by surprise. After all, it's not exactly normal to ask someone you just met something like that. But this man hadn't exactly conformed to 'normal' from the moment we met.  
'Well, yes. I suppose.' I paused, not sure if I should continue.  
The Doctor looked at me as if he expected more.  
'The house was a gift from my parents. They left it to me in their will but I couldn't inherit it until I turned 18.'  
It was quiet. The Doctor twirled his wing-shaped cufflink and stared at the open phonebook.  
'Their will. Are your parents dead?' he asked quietly.  
'Yes.' I said, looking at the floor. It always made me anxious when people brought up my parents.  
'I'm sorry.'  
It was so simple, what he said. It's what everyone says. Whether it's a parent or someone's hamster, the first thing people say is that they're sorry. I'd probably heard the chorus of "I'm sorry's" a thousand times.  
But it was never different until now.  
The Doctor had this look in his eyes. This sadness, this hurt, this expression of sorrow. He didn't just say it. He felt it.  
'It's okay.' was all I could manage to say.  
Suddenly, the Doctor smiled. One of those happy ones that reaches your eyes.  
'You never told me your name.' he said.  
I chuckled in surprise. I guess he was right.  
'It's Aster. Like the flower.'  
He grinned.  
'A name like a flower.'


End file.
